Before You Start

Software - You should know about flashing firmware and the dangers of doing so.

Hardware - If you are comfortable changing a motherboard in a computer, then you are probably OK - This is quite a bit more complicated than replacing HDs in a normal computer.

Firmware Update

This was all done with a WIRED Gigabit adaptor on my laptop connected directly to the TeraStation, with manually assigned IP addresses on both the computer and the TeraStation (no DHCP).

According to the instructions, this should not be done through a wireless connection, and I wouldn't trust doing it through any router either. The first time I tried to flash the TeraStation, the Wireless adapter on the latop was on (as well as the Gb adapter), and the firmware utility didn't seem to like that (I think the TCP metric favored the Wireless). Leaving only the Gigabit adapter "on", with one direct cable connection to the TeraStation, and disabling any other network adapter present on the computer appears to be the safest way to flash the firmware. It probably can also be done through a Gigabit switch - but to be safe, I wouldn't trust that either.

Procedure

1 - Flash the TeraStation with v2.10 (Japanese) Firmware

2 - Copy the files you want to save from original TeraStation disks to an external USB drive or other storage area connected to the computer.

3 - Switched off everything and disconnected all cables.

4 - Open Terastation and swap drives according to TeraStation's disassembly instructions (PDF). (The new drives were new and unformatted). There are lots of screws - so keep them carefully separated and tagged as to where they go since their sizes differ.

5 - Switch the Terastation back on.

6 - Connect the Terastation to your computer and run the Client Utility. It will come up showing no firmware present.

7 - Flash with v2.10 (Japanese) Firmware again - The Client Utility should be fine now.

One dialog box that hadn't come up on the first flash came up. I don't know what it said, but I chose the left button (YES) and it continued. It takes a while to complete, and the computer showed the gigabit adapter switching off and on momentarily a few times. I think a couple of other dialog boxes came up with only one button in them, and I clicked on it every time till the utility went back to its original screen. Some people have said they needed to restart the flashing a second time in order for it to work (apparently the box mentioned above is a warning about formatting the drives).

8 - Reboot the Terastation (by holding the front button for a few seconds and waiting for it to power down, and then powering up again).

If you want to keep the normal spanned disk created by default, skip steps 9 to 11. To create a RAID5 array, continue with step 9 (RAID 1 "mirrored" is also another possible choice).

9 - Enter the web interface for the Terastation and delete the newly created default "normal" spanned RAID (array1).

The admin password for the TS will either be kept as your original password or will revert the the default.

10 - When trying to delete the array, a page in Japanese comes up with four numbers and an empty text box (this is something that appears to be unique to the Japanese firmware). In order to delete the array, you have to type in the four numbers into the empty box (it is obviously a confirmation screen trying to make sure you want to delete the array).

11 - Created a new RAID-5 array - The disk check will run for about 7 hours.

12 - Copy the files from the USB external drive (or wherever you originally copied them to) back to the Terastation.

13 - Switch the computer's firewall back on.

Complete

My RAID-5 partition is now 836.2 GB - almost twice as much as before. All working fine so far (October 7, 2006).